


Keeping Secrets

by orphan_account



Series: Femslash Fridays [1]
Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Fluff, I am officially shit at tags, Rule 63, everything is better with lesbians, genderbent, genderbent character pretending they are the gender they have in canon, secret boobies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-03
Updated: 2013-05-03
Packaged: 2017-12-10 06:51:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/783076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kili is a prince of Erebor.<br/>Well, a princess.<br/>Trying to pass as a boy for the time of their quest.<br/>And not doing a very good job of it, according to at least one member of the Company.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keeping Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> WELCOME TO FEMSLASH FRIDAY WHERE WE SLASH GIRLS BECAUSE LADIES ARE AWESOME AND WHO DOESNT LOVE LADIES???  
> I certainly love ladies.  
> And i love ladies who love other ladies.  
> And I think I'll shut up now.

Kili was a prince of Erebor.

Having never even _seen_ Erebor was but a detail. The fact that, technically, the right title would have been _princess_ of Erebor, even more so. She was still a member of the royal family, of age to fight, and when her uncle and brother had announced that they were going to reclaim their kingdom, she had insisted she had to come with them. It hadn’t been easy to convince everyone (there were so _few_ women) but she had managed in the end, because she was stubborn and had threatened to follow them anyway.

Thorin’s only condition had been that she would travel as a man, for her own protection, and that if anyone discovered her, she would be sent back.

Being a boy was easy, as far as Kili was concerned. You just had to walk as if you had something big and fragile between your legs, and to laugh very loud and make fun of everyone who wasn’t as good as you were, and to always make sure everyone knew you were the best at everything.

Being a boy was easy, and she was good at it.

But Bifur still found her out in less than a week.

Kili had been sent with him to gather wood for the fire, one of the few tasks for which the strange dwarf seemed to be trusted. She tried not to be too offended by the fact that it was also one of the only things she was asked to do. But she _was_ offended. Being put at _Bifur’s_ level, really? She was so utterly upset that, to hide it, she started making jokes about the burglar they had picked up in the Shire. He was a safe target. No one seemed to care when she made fun of him, except for the burglar himself and Gandalf.

“ _Try to hard_ ,” Bifur grumbled after a moment.

“I know, right?” she sighed. “I don’t get why he’s being so bloody polite to everyone, he sounds like such a fucking elf, and…”

“ _Not him. You. Try too hard_.”

“What do you mean, I try too hard? I’m not even trying anything!”

Bifur grimaced. “ _Try too hard_ ,” he insisted. “ _You try…_ ” He stopped, frowning, and switched to signing. /Not how men act. You not act like man. You act like douche. No good way to hide. You try too hard, you try wrong way./

“I have no idea what you mean,” Kili protested, feeling her blood turn to ice. He could not have found her out. She’d been playing the role of a boy perfectly. He could not have found her out. She would not be sent back home.

/I know what you are/ Bifur signed then, and she panicked.

She quickly gathered as much wood as her arms could carry, and ran back to the camp, fighting back tears. She would _not_ be sent back home.

* * *

 

It took her two days to realize that she wouldn’t be sent away if Thorin didn’t know she’d been discovered, and by then it had become evident that Bifur had no intention to betray her secret. Still, better safe that sorry. The next time they were sent together to get wood, she asked him not to say a thing to Thorin.

/He not know you are girl?/ Bifur had asked, clearly surprised.

“No, he knows! But he… No one in the company is supposed to know it, and if he knows you know he’ll send me away, and I don’t want to leave, I want to stay and be with him and my brother and to fight by their side and protect them, you know?”

“ _I know_ ,” Bifur answered, looking grim and sad. “ _I know_.” /You good girl/ he adds with a strange smirk that was probably meant to be a kind smile. /You here to protect. Good. But you mock everyone. You act like child. Not good./

“Well, that’s how _boys_ act, isn’t it? Well, boys I know anyway./

“ _Not Ori._ ” /He not mock. He act kind. You act kind too?/

“Won’t everyone think I’m _weak_ if I act like Ori?”

She had nothing against the company’s scribe of course. He was nice and pretty to look at. Still, he was a bit of a weakling, and rather useless, as far as she could tell.

/Ori not weak/ Bifur assured her with another grin. /Watch him better. He not weak. He strong. Now, get wood. Talk again later./

* * *

 

Kili did what Bifur had advised her, and she watched Ori carefully. He was a small little thing of a dwarf, and a scribe at that, so she expected to find out that he really was a weakling, and that he probably needed help from everyone. It was a surprise when she found out that he usually _helped_ others. Small he was, but not useless, and everyone seemed to trust him.

He didn’t boast about anything, but everyone seemed to know that if they needed something mended, they could talk to him, and there also seemed to be a sort of unspoken agreement that he was the one taking care of the ponies, with some help from their burglar sometimes, or from Bifur if Mr Boggins was helping Bombur with the food.

/What you think of Ori now?/ Bifur asked her a few night later when they were alone.

“I think he might be a girl. Why would uncle allow another girl here? He made such a bloody scene when I asked to come, and now he’s allowing Ori, who’s this delicate little flower! Well, not so delicate, I’ve seen her help Dwalin clean his weapons, and she handled his hammer as if it weighed nothing.”

Bifur chuckled. /Ori not girl. But there is other in company, yes. Ori, he handle Dwalin’s hammer?/

“Yeah, didn’t you… _Oh_. No, I didn’t mean it like _that_!” Kili exclaimed, blushing at her own innuendo. “Not that they wouldn’t be cute of course, but I think Ori’s got a thing for the halfling. Not _there’s_ a hammer he’d like to _polish_.”

/Naughty girl/

“Not the first time I’m called that,” she replied with a wink. “And you haven’t seen anything yet.”

Something strange happened then. Bifur blushed.

Bifur blushed, and Kili _liked_ it.

* * *

 

It became a game after that. Trying to make Bifur blush. It was a fun game, and there was no harm in it, she thought. She had heard Bofur tell Mr Boggins that Bifur had lost his partner and his child in the orc attack that had brought that axe in his skull. And dwarves only loved once, everyone knew that. So she could flirt as freely as she wanted, there was no risk in it.

It never crossed her mind that, while Bifur would never fall in love with her, she might fall for him. After all he was male, and she didn’t have much of a taste for that. In her limited experience, breasts were a thing she enjoyed very much in a lover, whereas she couldn’t see a man’s hammer without sniggering at how _ridiculous_ they looked, which apparently tended to ruin the mood. And boys were so terribly annoying sometimes.

At least, boys her age were. Bifur wasn’t. He was kind and nice and oddly sweet, even with all his strange quirks and the way he sometimes stared into empty space or looked so sad when someone said something that reminded him of his family (or so Kili assumed).

But she wasn’t taking any risk, because there was no way she’d fall in love with him.

Was there?

She just liked seeing him blush, and the way he grinned at her when they shared a joke, or how he smiled when he thought she was making an effort to be kind instead of pretending to be a hard and unfeeling boy.

She just liked him a lot.

So she felt vaguely offended when Bofur took her apart one night, and asked her to stop playing with Bifur.

“It won’t end well fer anyone,” he warned her. “Bifur ain’t gonna give ye what ye want, lad.”

“I don’t want _anything_ from him!”

“Lad, ye can lie to yerself, but ye can’t hide it from me. I see how ye look at my cousin, and I’m telling ye. Won’t work. Drop it.”

” ‘Course it wouldn’t work, he’s been in love once already! He… he… he won’t ever love me, and I know that, and it’s fine, and I don’t care, and… I… I’ve got to go, but I… I _don’t_ love him, and I don’t care that he won’t love me either, okay?”

And she certainly did not cry when she went back to the camp.

But she did cry that night when everyone was asleep. It just wasn’t _fair_ that Bifur would never love her.

* * *

 

After that discussion with Bofur, she stopped flirting with Bifur, stopped talking to him entirely. She _wasn’t_ in love, but it still hurt.

Bifur didn’t say a thing at first, but after a day or two, he asked her if all was right, and he sounded so honestly worried and concerned that it all but broke Kili’s heart. It wasn’t _fair_ that he’d been in love before. Still, she took a deep breath, and forced a smile. She was a princess of Erebor. She knew sorrow, she knew pain, and she knew one did not always get what one wanted.

“I am perfectly fine, master Bifur,” she answered politely. “I am very sorry if I have done anything that made you think I wasn’t.”

“ _Lie_.” /You not smile./

“I am smiling right now, master Bifur.”

/Not smile. Not in eyes. Fake. When real smile, stars in your eyes. Now, only sadness. What wrong?/

Her heart clenched at the idea that he would see stars in her eyes. It hurt that he dared to say such a thing when he couldn’t love her. It wasn’t _fair_. But she was going to be strong, she was a princess of Erebor, she wouldn’t…

He took her hand then, and there was such open concern and affection in his eyes that she broke down.

“I love you!” she blurted out. “And I shouldn’t, and it’s stupid, because you’ve been married and you had a child and dwarves only love once, but I love you and I’m so sorry and Bofur told me I had no chance and I already knew that but I still love you.”

She wasn’t sure what answer she expected then.

But a kiss wasn’t it.

Not that she was complaining.

“ _Stupid, lovely girl_ ,” Bifur grunted. “ _Thought you were playing with me. I’m so glad_.”

“I was playing a little too,” she admitted. “I didn’t think… I thought… I know you can’t love me back, because you’ve already had a wife and all, and… Bofur told me you wouldn’t love me, and…”

“ _Bofur what_?” Bifur growled angrily. /He no right say that. Not true. I love you. But you must know. I have secret. I not say some things. Maybe after, you not love me./

He seemed so sad then that Kili couldn’t resist and kissed him again. She doubted anything he would say would make her love him less.

/I not had wife/ he explained then. /I was married, I had child, but I not had wife. I had husband./

It took Kili a few seconds to understand what that meant, and during that short moment, Bifur stared at her with no small amount of fear and worry.

Bifur had had a child, and a husband.

Bifur was a woman.

Bifur, somewhere under all those layers of clothes, had breasts and a cavern.

Kili felt as if Durin’s day had come early. It was as if Mahal had given her the most perfect of dwarves with just one small little defect and then, at the last moment, had changed His mind and decided to make that the most entirely absolutely perfectest of dwarves.

She pounced on Bifur to kiss her, making them both lose their balance. The kiss was interrupted for a few seconds as they fell, but Kili quickly found the other dwarf’s mouth again as her hands tried to slip beneath Bifur’s tunic and shirt.

/You not mind then?/ Bifur asked when they briefly broke the kiss for breath. /I am woman, you not mind?/

“Oh, I’ll show you just how little I mind,” Kili purred, taking her lips again.

Bifur chuckled softly, and kissed her back.


End file.
